How difficult is it to understand?
The rumour is:
Lashana Lynch (character name TBC) will temporarily take James Bond's 00 number for one film while James enjoys retirement.
There's nothing to suggest a Black woman will play James Bond. Anyone with half a brain realises James Bond will get his sacred number back. Barbara Brocolli would never cast a woman in the lead role of a Bond film.
And yet, thousands of James Bond fanboys are foaming at the mouth. They're furiously banging away at their keyboards. They're claiming it's "PC gone mad", "equal rights crap", "the end of the series" and "leftie nonsense". They're crying that "Ian Fleming must be rolling in his grave".
Who cares if he is?
Fleming has probably been turning in his grave since 1967 when producers discarded his version of You Only Live Twice for a space film.
He was probably doing somersaults when Roger Moore took his character for a laugh for seven films. He would've baulked at intelligent Bond girls, a female M, a black Moneypenny and a black Felix Leiter.
He was probably going for the high jump over the church's steeple when Live and Let Die's Black characters were sophisticated villains rather than lackeys.
Since Dr. No, producers have been giving many of Fleming's ideas a wide berth. What happened to the giant centipede?
What about Rosa Klebb dancing in her nightie and panties in From Russia with Love?
Why didn't Guy Hamilton have Oddjob eating cats in Goldfinger?
Only five of the 24 Eon films are faithful adaptions of Fleming's books.
Some fans act as if Fleming's views on gender and race of the 1950s still have a part to play in today's society. There's a female 00 in the film version of Thunderball they never gripe about. But oh yes — she was white.
I always welcome fresh ideas for the series to save it from going stale. A female agent — Black or White — taking Bond's 00 number is an innovative idea we should embrace. Skin colour is irrelevant.
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